Tag Archives: cauterize

I really don’t want to get annoyed but one of my boys needs another operation. He slammed his finger in a door and waited over a week to tell me. The finger is fractured, the ligament off and the bones have fused. And blah blah blah. So now they need to insert a pin.

In 2010 he tore the AC Ligament in his left knee during a warm-up race in the Cape Town Nationals (motocross) which required two operations and a full year of rehabilitation. He was back on his bike only for the fourth time in February 2011 when that same ligament snapped in half. Another long year of rehabilitation and he just got back on the bike when he breaks his finger!

In 2003 the kids were shooting with the pellet gun outside in the garden. I was there to keep an eye but somehow, this child stepped in front of the gun (with the barrel about 4cm from his head) when the gun went off. That little pellet went through his skull in three different places, all three holes clearly visible on the X-Ray. The neurosurgeon explained to me that although the bullet did not enter the brain itself, a cold bullet (such as from a air-gun) does not cauterise on its way in like a hot bullet would do, and so the chances of infection were high. Also, the fragments took with them plugs of hair which were trapped between the brain and the skull, more bugs for infection. So they cut out a round piece of skull, flushed out the cavity and cleaned around the brain before putting everything back together with pins. One of these days he will set off airport alarms.

We survived all that. I should not complain but like I said, I am somewhat annoyed. The older one also had his fair share of accidents and hospitals but never quite reached the same lofty heights as his brother.